The present invention relates to projectiles and, more particularly, to means to improve the impact energy transfer efficiency of projectiles.
Projectiles in the form of conventional bullets remain intact upon striking a soft target to cause substantially a single wound tract. While conventional bullets may expand or tumble after impacting the soft target to increase lethality of the bullet, frequently the bullet will start its expanding or tumbling action only after much of the target has been penetrated. Prior art methods for improving impact energy transfer efficiency and thus bullet lethality generally involve alteration of the external configuration of the bullet, i.e., hollow-point, off-center punch, spoon nose and the like.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,173,371, 3,861,314 and 4,338,862 disclose various attempts to alter the performance of a projectile by altering its external configuration to promote instability upon impact or by altering the internal configuration of the projectile with passive elements such as a disc or a low density filler material. Unfortunately, none of prior art devices provides a projectile having positive means to improve the impact energy transfer of the projectile.